Wordless Wednesday: The challenges of this new life

Every day, I make a list. At the end of every day, I find myself frustrated by all the things left on it.

I’m failing.

Work is piling up. Mail is piling up. Emails need to be answered.

And the vegetables don’t wait. As I stand by my sink, snipping the ends off purple beans so I can blanch and freeze them for winter, I can see one of the two drainage streams in our yard. They stretch as far as I can see from my window, and they’re so overgrown with weeds that you can’t see the water in them. This is a problem, because rainy season is coming and if they’re blocked, we’re just asking for our property to flood.

Homesteading requires a ton of maintenance. There is no downtime, and we haven’t even turned our property into a homestead yet. It’s just a really big lot with a garden on it. But with my new business, the kids at 3 years and 6 months old, my husband’s overtime…it’s taking all we have to just barely keep up. And the things that need to be done? They don’t care about how hard we try. Whether we’re worn out, tired, or not in the mood, they still need to be done just the same.

The ditches are on the list. They need to be taken care of soon, and it will take an entire weekend to clear them out. But for now, I look down at my daughter with her brand new tooth, trying to perfect her downdog pose on the floor (she is so determined to crawl any minute) and I keep on snipping, trying not to look at the clock.

Because one thing at a time, mama. One thing, one day, one week at a time. You’re doing a good job, even if it doesn’t always feel like it.